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Yesterday, we had a especially long morning meeting in the teachers' room (our common office) because one of the seventh grade girl's mother and father punished her over some minor offense (a squabble with another student) by cutting off almost all of her hair. In old times this was a way of marking a woman who had done some reprehensible "bad thing." They're not only strict, but antiquated too. So, this nomally cheerful and active girl now wears a ski-cap to class and spends the whole day with her head on her desk in shame and dejection. "Good going ma and pa!" I gave her a Liz Phair tape and told her to put rat poison in her parents green tea. not really. it was a carpenters tape and i told her to stick closer to church oriented social activities.
A break in my normal routine. On the way to school, I have to ride past a school that I worked at previously. Kamakura J.H. is kind of famous for being the worst school in Maebashi. They have always had a big problem with bosozoku motorcycle gangs causing trouble, trying to recruit or scare the boys and get down the skirts (school uniforms) of the girls. A teacher friend of mine from a different city attended Kamakura. He told me that one time there was an announcement over the intercom that everyone would have to share their lunches that day and that there would be no dessert at all. The bosozoku had broken into the school lunch storeroom and eaten a lot of the food and all the jello. A teacher looked out the window and saw them sitting in the parking lot finishing off the jellos. So this school doesn't have a great history. Usually when there's a ceremony or special event they circle the school with their bikes revving the engines noisily. The day I threatened just happened to be graduation. So I was not surprised when I heard a car racing it's engine several cars behind me. There were quite a few cars on the road that day, so the driver back there had no hope of getting anywhere any faster than anyone else. Nevertheless, he get honking his horn, darting into the oncoming lane, trying to get around the car in front of him, succeeding once, but mainly swerving back into his own lane to avoid head-on collisions. I pulled off onto the sidewalk just to watch the madman. Mad is the word too. I thought, this is not the driving of someone trying to cause trouble--this is the driving of someone in a state of RAGE. But the road in front of a junior high (and the city high school directly across the street) is not the place to express yourself like that. As I came up to the T where he was waiting to turn right and I turn left, I rapped on his windows as I went by. I guess he didn't appreciate my effort to lead him to a higher state of understanding because instead of turning right, he came left passed me and cut me off, stopping the car in front of me. I was pretty surprised by this because the Japanese are so famously unconfrontational. But this was obviously not your ordinary Japanese, whose insanity probably crossed many cultural lines. I was standing there on my bike wondering "What's going to happen next?" He unrolled the window on the right driver side and surprised me again by shouting in English, "WHAT!!! WHAT!!!" This does not happen often out here in the sticks. He definitely had the edge now, so I backed up a few steps and rode around him, saying "ABUNAI YO," (DANGEROUS). As I rode off, I clearly heard him say, "You're DEAD!" He didn't follow me-- no way he could really on that narrow road--but reversed and went back the other way. But I couldn't help thinking what a creepy thing that was to say. I'd been so taken off guard that I hadn't looked at the license plate, and then realized that I couldn't even remember what the car looked like (I never notice what cars look like) so if we crossed paths again, he'd see me long before I saw him. Old W.S. Burroughs practice I picked up long ago. Always see eveyone, before they see you first. Everyone, friends enemies, perfect strangers, even cats and esspecially shit-eating dogs. I tried to recall if the windows were tinted in the yakuza style. Couldn't remember. I could also imagine riding down that narrow road with the river to the left and the fenced off construction site to the right, and seeing both ends of the road suddenly cut off by motorcycles--there are bosozoku yakuza-wanna-be deadbeats with nothing to do but the bidding of their yakuza superiors, and those guys don't fight, they carry knives. There was a such an unreality about the whole thing that I figured anything could happen next, so the next day I took a different route. This one runs by the Momonoki river on the cycling road so there are no cars at all, and it is after all the average head-up-his/her-ass driver who poses the biggest threat anyway.
The Quiet American--no not the book but the guy I met in Isesaki the other night. Rika's got these two friends--Eriko and Kopi, a very nice couple with a six-month-year old baby. They invited us over for drinks a few weeks ago. At the last minute we got word that Kopi's American friend from the car parts manafacturer where he works would be joining us. I thought it might be interesting for a change, so what the hell and after all, he is Kopi's friend . . .
Cut to Kopi and Eriko's apartment had several drinks and talked for a while, took some pic with the baby and so on. Finally, Miles, the Quiet American, shows up. From the moment that he walked into the room I could tell he was uncomfortable, even pensive. His "sex-friend" Miho walked in and sat on the floor across the table from Rika and I. Kopi busted out a huge plate of sashimi, and I opened the wine that Rika and I had brought.
After the ice-breaking B.S., I still had the feeling this guy just didn't want to be there. But gradually he warmed up a little and told me a little about his work. As we conversed and continued to drink I became more and more impressed by this thoughtful and well-spoken Californian. Miles said confessed that actually he hadn't really wanted to spend the evening with an American or a foreignor in general. "I'm the only foreignor at the office where I work, and actually, you're the first foreignor I've spoken with in about three months. To tell you the truth, just speaking English to another native speaker feels a little strange." I told him about the time three years earlier I had replied to an invitation to a foreignor association Christmas party, saying "...please don't bother me with anymore invitations to your parties." Miles remarked that sounds like the kind of thing I'd do, and laughed a funny little laugh.
As we continued to talk about I realized that this was the first time I'd had a real conversation in some time, and I felt really glad that we'd met. I felt sorry to have pre-judged someone. Eriko returned from dropping the baby off at the parents and it was time to go out for karaoke. We drove over to Shidax Karaoke just a few minutes away and got a booth. After a couple of ume sours I was ready to try making it through Asia Jun Shin by Puffy. Just minutes after that Miles got a call on his keitai and stepped outside to answer it. Eriko was singing a Japanese equivilant of Country Roads Take Me Home (which itself is huge over here) when Miho opened the door and said something about a fight. We all stepped out onto the mezzanine and looked down into the lobby. I naturally expected to see some bosozoku members. THEY'RE always causing trouble. What I didn't expect to see was this guy with whom I'd just been having an intelligent conversation just an hour before and some Japanese kid about to rip each others heads off. Kopi was standing between the two of them. Miles broke past Kopi and head-butted the kid just before Kopi wrestled him to the ground and dragged him back by his legs. There were splotches of blood smeared all over the floor. The Quiet-American let out a shout of rage at the kid and managed to stand up before Kopi toppled both of them onto a table by the wall, smearing more blood onto the white tablecloth and sending advertising pamphlets and a plastic floral arrangement across the floors. The Japanese kids split. Kopi dragged Miles off down a hallway.
I walked downstairs (probably not too smart) and looked around. The lobby was empty except for a couple of employess mopping up the blood. Suddenly Miles reappeared a corridor behind me. I got a good look at him for the first time. His face had about a dozen cuts and scratches all over it. He was carrying a blood-soaked t-shirt, which he threw against the wall, just before punching a vending machine screaming in rage and thowing open the swinging doors of the establishment. Rika and Eriko came down. I said "What the hell just happened." They explained that while Miles was in the lobby with his sex-friend, Miho, her boyfriend just happened to walk in and started talking to her, having no idea she was there with Miles. Apparently, Miles attacked him without provocation. I walked outside. He was standing with Miho. Blood was flowing freelyfrom a pretty deep gash over his eye. Miho was exhorting him in Japanese to go to the hospital. I said, "Miles, have you had a good look at yourself in the mirror? You've got a really deep cut over your eye and I really think the smart thing to do would be to go to the hospital." Miles, back to his cool calm and collected self, replied, "David, I just met you tonight, but I can see that you're genuinely concerned with me, and for that I thank you, but I'm alright, I'm alright. I mean this-- I did this to myself--" By this time Eriko and Kopi were there, also urging him to get stitches. "Listen, you guys. I am not going to the hospital. I'm going to go home and stitch this up myself in the bathroom." And there we left him before anything worse happened.
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